Center’s seventh FOIA lawsuit would compel proactive release of three key types of documents on a quarterly basis
On November 13, 2024, the University of Washington Center for Human Rights (UWCHR) filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), seeking to require ICE to proactively disclose three key types of documents on a quarterly basis. Read the full filing here: https://jsis.washington.edu/humanrights/224-cv-01872-western-washington-federal-district-court/
Because federal agencies respond slowly – and in the case of ICE, sometimes not at all – to FOIA requests, requestors typically wait months or years to receive records, and are sometimes obligated to go to court to compel their disclosure. While UWCHR has been successful in compelling disclosure through litigation, this process results in needless delays and expenses. Often, by the time records are released they address incidents happening years prior. However, proactive disclosure, required under the FOIA Improvement Act of 2016, obligates agencies to make publicly available certain records that have repeatedly been sought by multiple requestors, as a means of efficiently handling access to information requests. UWCHR seeks to compel DHS to proactively release three such categories of documents: I-213 forms, Segregation Review Management System data, and Significant Incident Reports.
These three categories of documents are extensively cited in UWCHR’s research and have been the subject of previous UWCHR FOIA litigation:
- I-213 or “Record of Deportable/Inadmissible Alien” forms are generated whenever someone is apprehended by ICE or Customs and Border Protection. These documents offer the most detailed representation of ICE and Border Patrol arrests in Washington state, and have informed UWCHR reports monitoring compliance with local immigrant rights laws such as Keep Washington Working and Courts Open to All.
- Segregation Review Management System data on solitary confinement placements in ICE detention are one of the few sources of information on this controversial practice. Through this database, ICE detention facilities track certain information about solitary confinement placements nationwide, including reasons for placing people in solitary, dates of placement, duration of placement, and more. ICE is supposed to review this data regularly to ensure that the use of solitary confinement meets agency standards. However, reports of failure to meet such standards, as well as human rights concerns with the practice overall, continue to surface. Following the death of Charles Leo Daniel at the Northwest Detention Center in March 2024, UWCHR used SRMS data to confirm that he had been subjected to the second-longest segregation stay on record nationwide during his time in detention.
- Significant Incident Reports are used by DHS to document and share information about significant events that have occurred in the field, including any time force is used by ICE or Border Patrol agents; any time a hunger strike, a suicide attempt, death, or a serious injury occurs at a facility run by or for the agency; and any time a detained person is taken to receive outside medical care. Since there is virtually no transparency about the operations of ICE and GEO Group’s immigrant detention compound in Tacoma, these documents have proven to be essential tools in corroborating human rights conditions inside the facility and can be found cited in the ongoing series of UWCHR reports monitoring conditions at the Northwest Detention Center.
“After repeatedly fighting in court for access to records which, by law, should be publicly available, today we’re taking a different tack. Piecemeal enforcement of FOIA is not only a waste of taxpayer resources, it delays access to information in ways that impede effective oversight of ICE operations. Federal law actually requires the proactive, periodic release of documents requested repeatedly; we are today demanding that ICE comply with those requirements for three specific classes of documents, in the interest of transparency and democratic accountability,” said Angelina Godoy, director the University of Washington Center for Human Rights.
In past years, the UWCHR has been successful in bringing FOIA litigation against various branches of the U.S. federal government including the Central Intelligence Agency (twice), the Department of Defense and Defense Intelligence Agency, and DHS/ICE/CBP (also twice). In all five of these cases, the Center has been represented pro bono by attorneys at Davis Wright Tremaine, who were appointed Special Assistant Attorneys General to the University of Washington for this exclusive purpose. In all five suits, UWCHR successfully reached settlements with the defendant agencies.
UWCHR’s work relies on public records requests and has received thousands of pages of previously-undisclosed documents relevant to the study and practice of human rights, and used these documents in fulfillment of the mission given the Center by the Washington State Legislature in 2009.